Many thanks to Baker Academic for kindly providing us with a review copy.

Stoicism in Early Christianity is a collection of essays on a variety of topics suggesting that Stoicism rather than Middle Platonism was the predominant philosophical influence on early Christian texts. The emphasis on Stoic influence is seen as a neglected area in New Testament scholarship, which the book wants to change. Nearly half of the book’s thirteen essays are written by Nordic scholars (as one may expect of a book edited by two Finns and a Dane), but other authors range from universities in the USA, the Netherlands, Japan and South Africa. Read the rest of this entry »

Frank J. Matera’s Romans commentary is meant for “students at the master’s level” (4) and, despite fulfilling this purpose well, it gives some food for thought to more advanced scholars alike. The Paideia series as a whole, in which Matera’s commentary stands, is student-friendly in its threefold exegetical subdivisions: “Introductory Issues” for the background, “Tracing the Train of Thought” for a focus on the rhetorical flow of the text and “Theological Issues” for the significance of the text for Pauline and, indeed, Christian theology from Antiquity through key points along the text’s history of interpretation to the present.

One might assume that a Greek-speaking academic with the name Theophilos might be biased when it comes to the pronunciation of Koine Greek. Dr Michael P. Theopilos’ case clearly supported by manuscript evidence, however, made many convinced of or at least interested in the advantages of Modern Greek pronunciation over against the traditional Erasmian pronunciation (or, pronunciations) prevalent in Western academia.

Theophilos began with the common misconception that since we have no exact knowledge of how New Testament Greek was pronounced in its day, the default Erasmian pronunciation is our best option. He laid out some of the scholarship on Greek pronunciation, of which there is no lack. Many scholars, however, such as E.P. Petrounias, fail to note the witness offered by Egyptian papyri (‘The Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: Evidence and Hypotheses’, in A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity [ed. A.-F. Christidis; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001], 545-555.). Read the rest of this entry »

A report on a paper given by Dr Benjamin Schliesser (Zürich University) at the Senior New Testament Seminar of the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, 11 October 2011.

The list of forthcoming papers in the New Testament Seminars at Cambridge can be found here. You can also find us on facebook, here.

Dr Schliesser’s paper began with the realisation that he had made when writing his PhD thesis: the notion of doubt has not been dealt with much at all in Pauline scholarship. The doubt of Don Quixote, Descartes, Luther and the modern sceptic were all mentioned as examples that shape our present-day definition of the word “doubt”: uncertainty, hesitation, lack of confidence and wavering between two positions.

Most of the paper focused on Romans 4:20 and Paul’s use of διακρίνεσθαι therein. Dr Schliesser carefully showed the discrepancy between the classical/Hellenistic meaning of the verb (“to be separated or to be dissolved [into elements]”, “to come to a decision or to get it decided” or “to contend or to dispute”) and the way in which it is usually read in the New Testament (“to contend with oneself” or simply “to doubt”). Read the rest of this entry »

A report on a paper given by Professor John M.G. Barclay (Durham) at the Senior New Testament Seminar of the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, 17 May 2011

The list of forthcoming papers in the New Testament Seminars at Cambridge can be found here. You can also find us on facebook, here.

In what was clearly amongst the best-presented papers of the senior seminar series of this academic year, Professor John Barclay focused on the relationship between the Christ-gift and God’s plan. He painted his argument on the backdrop of the views of N.T. Wright and J.L. Martyn on the Christ-event and time. Barclay criticised both of them, admitting, though, that his own view was closer to that of Martyn’s: whereas Wright sees the crucifixion as the event that shocks Israel and unveils God’s apocalyptic plan, Martyn holds that the Christ-event creates a new cosmological moment in which the whole cosmos is put to a halt by the cross. Read the rest of this entry »

The list of forthcoming papers in the New Testament Seminars at Cambridge can be found here.

Morna Hooker presented a survey of Paul’s holiness language and theology throughout the Pauline corpus. She expressed at the outset that her reason for giving a seminar paper on this particular topic was the neglect which sanctification/holiness has faced in New Testament scholarship particularly in areas affected by the Protestant overemphasis of justification over against sanctification. What also requires clarification is the confusion of terms in English: holiness terminology in Paul can be rendered in English with such words as holy, saints, holiness, sanctification and consecration. Read the rest of this entry »

We extend our thanks to Mohr Siebeck for providing us with a review copy.

It is only in the recent years that some scholars have begun to criticise the indicative/imperative division of New Testament ethics that was first presented by P. Wernle in 1897 and popularised by R. Bultmann in his 1924 essay.Truthfully to its name, Jenseits von Indikativ und Imperativ [Beyond the Indicative and Imperative] delves into the recent criticism via 17 articles (two of which are in English) that present ways of going beyond the indicative and imperative. The book is the result of a round-table discussion on the foundations of New Testament ethics that took place in Germany in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

I am grateful to Samuli Siikavirta for taking the time to engage at length with Solidarity and Difference and I hope that these few brief remarks by way of response may help not only to clarify issues but also, perhaps, to take discussion beyond where the book leaves off. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a report on a paper of Shane Berg, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, presented in the Senior NT seminar at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, 26 Oct 2010.

The list of this term’s papers in this particular seminar is available here.

Shane Berg’s paper presented the interesting hypothesis that the anthropology and religious epistemology of the community hymns of the Qumran Hodayot (thanksgiving hymns) have similarities with those of Romans. Berg argued that both the Hodayot and Romans assert universal human sinfulness in light of the creation and Fall narratives of Genesis on the one hand and the remedying agency of the Spirit on the other.

Amongst other Qumran texts, the paper mentioned 1QHa 9:10-18; 6:13; 20:11-12 and 7:12-14 as examples of community hymns with universal sinfulness in their anthropology. They depict human existence in a negative fashion, emphasising human sinfulness, ignorance and frail and inadequate cognition to come to God’s will. Men are composed of dust and cannot know God – and idea that has its Biblical background in Gen. 2-3 (cf. Job 10:9; 4:19; 34:15; Ecclesiastes 3:20; 12:7; Ps 103:14; 104:29). Read the rest of this entry »

2018.06.08 | Andrew Ter Ern Loke. The Origin of Divine Christology. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 169. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. 249 pp. Reviewed by Kai Akagi, Japan Bible Academy. Andrew Loke’s The Origin of Divine Christology continues the stream of works on early high Christology of the neue religionsgeschichtliche Schule by arguing that […]

2018.05.07 | Adams, Sean A. and Seth M. Ehorn, eds. Composite Citations in Antiquity: Jewish Graeco-Roman, and Early Christian Uses. Vol 1. London; New York: Bloomsbury, 2016. Reviewed by R. Jarrett Van Tine, University of St. Andrews. This work is the first of a two-volume set addressing the curious literary technique of composite citation (CC). […]

2018.02.04 | Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Micah: A Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015. Reviewed by Mark Glanville. Daniel L. Smith-Christopher has produced a new commentary on Micah in the Old Testament Library series. This commentary follows an earlier commentary on Micah in this respected series by James Luther Mays, published in 1976.1 The body of […]

2018.01.02 | Jörg Frey and John R. Levison, eds. The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Ekstasis 5. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. Reviewed by Jesse D. Stone, University of St Andrews. This volume gathers together essays produced as part of an interdisciplinary project on the historical roots of early Christian pneumatology […]